Santa Tantrum Awards — vote now!

The official Santa Tantrum Awards field is below. Let us know which ones are your favorites in the comments, preferably with your rationale. Please respect the integrity of this contest, and don’t just blindly vote for some kid you know.

Courtesy Lisa Edwards

As you can tell from previous years (here are twoexamples), determining our contest winners is fairly arbitrary process, and reader voting is only advisory. But there are some consistent factors that go into a Santa Tantrum champion. Simply sending us a picture of your screaming child isn’t usually enough to win — you need an outstanding reaction from the other kids, reaction from Santa or an X-factor that sets your photo apart. (A foot jammed firmly in Santa’s testicles, for example.)

We received close to 50 entries, a little more than half of which are below. Several were weeded out because of poor picture quality, lack of tantrums or technical problems with the image.

Thanks to everyone who participated! Winners announced early next week …

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Courtesy Nicole Vasgerdsian

I don’t know if it was the super long wait, the Happy Meal or the noise from all the Wii kiosks that put them over the edge, but our girls just didn’t have a lot of love for Santa at Stoneridge Mall. I do feel a little guilty about how hard this makes me laugh. And yes, this is our Christmas card this year.

Nicole Vasgerdsian-Brady

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Courtesy Elyse Cobb

Hi Peter,

Here is a picture of my mom, brother and I with santa in 1979. My brother Lee is about 9 mos old and I am about 2 1/2 yo. Mom is looking glamourous, Lee is terrified and I apparantly find the entire debacle quite amusing. 🙂

Enjoy,

Elyse

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Courtesy C.N.

Courtesy C. N.

We love your blog and your Santa Tantrum competition. I had a suspicion that my darling, willful Sarah might be a contender. This was her first visit to Santa and she didn’t let us down. I must say I admire her instincts in this case. I won’t mention which Bay Area mall we were visiting, but our Santa was a bit off. How often do you think they launder that red suits?

C.N.

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Courtesy Heather Bush

My daughter, Zoe, turned one on December 17 and she does well with strangers so we thought we would head off to the local mall for a fun day of shopping and visiting Santa. While we were waiting in line, she was all smiles, pointing to Santa and saying ooooh. As soon as the kids in front of us got off of Santa’s lap she started to lose it. When I actually handed her off she exploded!!! This picture is the result of that explosion. As soon as I picked her up, she was fine again, not a tear in her eyes.

Heather C. Bush

Tallahassee, FL

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Courtesy Carolyn Manning

Corbin just found out he didn’t make Santa’s “Nice List.”

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Courtesy Lisa Edwards

I dont think this photo needs any words to set the seen, it screams for itself!

Love, Mom

(Lisa Edwards)

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Courtesy James Zachary

Hey There,

Attached are two photos of our twin girls visiting Santa. The first trip wasn’t planned, but we decided to see Santa at the mall because there wasn’t a line. The second time was a breakfast with Santa, with our twins group. Obviously, they were not fans of Santa either time.

The second Sofia walked into the room and saw Santa, she started melting down. We briefly tried to calm her down with me (mommy) holding her, but then I just decided it would be a lot funnier to have a full on meltdown picture with Santa, so we just went for it. I was right.

– Leslie

Oakland, CA

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Courtesy Junita McAfee

This is our son Colin (7 months) expressing his displeasure with Santa. This was our second attempt and he found him just as awful as the first time.

Junita McAfee

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Courtesy Amy K. Kelley

Here is a picture of my three taken at the mall last week. The older two are unnaturally angelic while my 15 month old is freaking out. Santa looks equally freaked out. We were laughing so hard when we saw it!

Amy

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Courtesy Linda Taylor

Here is a photo of my baby, Chloe, at 22 months of age, with Santa. Just look at her. I felt a tinge of guilt for thinking it was hilarious …

-Linda

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Courtesy Gen McNulty

Hey Peter!

I hope this email finds you well!!

I thought it would be funny to send you this years picture. It’s worse than last years! OMG! I have no idea why I continue to traumatize my children.

Gen

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Courtesy Sarie Scully

Courtesy Sarie Scully

Hi,

Here are my 2 year old twins terrified of Santa (and also a compilation we made for our Christmas

cards).

Thanks,

Sarie Scully

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Courtesy Tracy Fowler

Lexi’s Daddy decided to take her to Wal-Mart so as to give me a small break, and time to wrap presents. (He dressed her too … hence the Texas ball cap!) He called excited that they were taking free pics with Santa. I was a little curious how that was going to go, but the picture explains it all!!! I laughed hysterically when he brought it home.

Tracy Fowler

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Courtesy DeEtta Cobra

This is the Santa at Stonestown mall (as requested). My son is 16 months old and he didn’t like Santa at all. He just screamed. The scene of the crime …

Dexter met his match when we took him to the mall last Saturday. He met his arch-enemy, Santa Claus. … His dad and I took turns herding him around the general area of Santa. He couldn’t sit still at all. I could see Santa sizing up the kids in line. That newborn will be easy, the 4 year old girl will be the highlight of the next hour, oh man that little boy in the green shirt is gonna scream!

When it was out turn, Dad took Dexter over to meet Santa. Dexter shied away and practically tried to climb inside his dad’s shoulder. Santa patted Dex on the back and Dexter just looked away from Santa. Dad put Dexter on Santa’s lap and Dexter cried and cried. We got a couple pics to commemorate the look of terror on Dexter’s face. I can understand. I mean handing him over to a strange man sitting on a big chair, dressed in a weird outfit — if it wasn’t a holiday tradition, I’d be scared too!

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Courtesy Laura Rhine

Peter,

Not sure if this qualifies for the Santa photos. My 4-year-old daughter is a little obsessed with Cheerleaders right now — her 9-month-old brother is a little more concerned with who this Santa Character is.

Laura Rhine

(Editor’s note: This definitely qualifies …)

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Courtesy Karen and Tom Hamilton

Courtesy Karen and Tom Hamilton

Here you go Peter … hope to get those “bonus points” for dad trying not to look pained. I really couldn’t decide which one looked more agonizing so I had to send both. You can decide.

This picture of our two year-old son Matthew was taken at a company holiday party. Santa was one of the partners in the firm. Luckily, dad kept his job even after Santa was kicked right in the sleigh bells.

Karen and Tom Hamilton

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Courtesy Karly Sanderlin

This is my 3 1/2 year old Breanna. It took a good 20 minutes of trying just to get her to just sit there. It was taken at Walmart on 12/7/08. Is Santa rolling his eyes? My little Grinch!

Karly Sanderlin

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Courtesy Paul and Tara Nemeth

This is our son John Robert with Santa in the Corte Madera Village shopping center. Believe it or not, he was perfectly happy before we sat him on Santa’s lap, and perfectly happy right after. We hope you enjoy the photo as much as he didn’t enjoy his visit with Santa!

Paul & Tara Nemeth

Foster City, CA

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Courtesy Kelly Rummelhart

Here’s Sawyer last year at 15 months … we’ll see how this year goes.

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Courtesy Amanda Moyrong

Hi Peter,

The attached photo is from Xmas 2005. The little girl is my daughter Bella (1 month old at the time) and her cousin Jayden (8 months old). Both of them were playful in line. But once we sat them on Santa’s lap, they took one look at him, then at each other, and then all hell broke loose!

This being both of their very first Xmas pictures with Santa, Jayden’s mom and I both still laugh because it not only shows the dynamic duo from the beginning but also serves as an explanation of our crazy personalities. People’s first reaction is usually something like, “They’re definantly your kids!” or “They take after their Mommies!”

Three years later, they’re still the Dynamic Duo!

Happy Holidays,

Mandie and Vanessa

P.S. The Santa in the picture is actually the old Stonestown Santa who was such a good sport about the screaming babies. Sad to hear that he’s no longer there.

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Courtesy Espie Westergaard

Hi Peter,

This is a picture of my daughter Rachel at the age of 2 with the man she now refers to as ‘Crazy Santa.’ She ripped my husband’s shirt when we were trying to get her on his lap. We haven’t taken her back to see Crazy Santa since but now that she has little sister we may try again.

Happy Holidays,

Espie Westergaard

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Courtesy Amy Sandlin

This is a photo of my daughter Nevara last Christmas (07). She was

18 months old. We waited in line for over an hour and a half and she

was SO excited to see Santa for the first time! Once we finally got

up to where we could see him, she started saying “HO HO HO!” really

loudly and getting all excited, I had to take her out of her stroller

to keep her from falling out of it.

Then, once we got up to him and I placed her on his lap … this is the face we got. Screams, tears, shoes kicked off and terror filled the scene! Santa never lost his cool.

Love it. Hope this year goes better.

Amy Sandlin

Portland, OR

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Courtesy Julie Meirick Baniewicz

How many points do we get for this (-; a photo of our TRIPLETS crying on Santa’s lap … enjoy …

Julie

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Courtesy Mark Waller

It was a pleasant day at the mall for one-year-old Magnolia: trying to grab things from her seat in the shopping cart, toddling through the mazes of clothing racks and otherwise enjoying babyhood. That is until, for unexplained reasons, Mom and Dad delivered her to a large fuzzy man in bright red garb, who clutched her for a few horrifying moments, maintaining an eerily Zen-like expression while a photographer futilely tried to entertain and distract by jingling some bells. They could do nothing to suppress her forceful protests. Mercifully, the nightmare quickly ended, and Magnolia returned to a state of unknowing childlike contentment. But little did she know, the episode was captured for posterity, and someday it will reemerge to haunt her again.